I'll be moving over my two existing SSDs (64GB and 256GB) from my existing 2009 system.EDIT: New SSD for O/S, existing 256GB SSD moved over from existing system.

Some explanations if people get around to looking at this:

Games are my primary focus. Two 1920 * 1080 displays, one DVI, one HDMI, so the card has the connectors I need.

I replace my systems every three years or so, to avoid component failure and penis-size-comparisons , so I'm slightly overdue. (My 2003, 2006 and 2009 systems were all Ars Hot-Rod builds)

I considered the I7-3770K, but at $330, it's $100 more than than I5-3570K and there's no payoff.

EDIT: I5-3570, no K.

32GB memory, lol, yeah, OVERKILL++, but that's fine. People said I was crazy when I went to 2GB in 2000 ...

EDIT: Looking out for 'large heat sink' shenanigans.

Blue-ray AND DVD burners? Redundancy, and region/zone issues. On my 2009 system, one of the two DVD-writers I bought has failed, and the other one is likely on it's way out, at $20 for a replacement, hang the expense!

EDIT: sticking with the GTX570, see if the improved CPU fixes up Planetside 2 framerates.

Radeon 7970 was significantly cheaper than the GTX680, and I like to switch between ATI and Nvidia each time around, just to keep them going; I went from a HD4850 to a GTX570, and was pleased. I expect the GTX570 -> HD7970 should bring some frame-rate improvements for Planetside 2.

The ALTERNATIVE to this build, was jumping ship, and going Mac. I just can't stomach the idea though, I like my enormous library of games, and I'm very familiar with Windows. I've tried emulating Mac, and it's so fragile, and (to me) opaque, I just don't think I'd enjoy it. Also, the price differential between this prospective system, and an *equivalent* Apple product, is at least $AU2,000 MORE - $4,360 per Apple's Mac page)

I'd appreciate comments on the components, but please, no at my existing choices. Mostly, to see if I've made any blunders (bad memory for the motherboard, bad CPU/MB combo, that kind of thing.)

The RAM you chose has really large peni heat sinks - they may get in the way of your CPU Heatsink. Since they are virtually worthless you can take your dremel and remove the offending bits. If this doesn't appeal to you you could get some RAM with smaller peni heat sinks. They are 1.5 V which is what you want.

1.) are you gaming on BOTH monitors? If not, a 7970 is pretty massive overkill for a 1080p monitor, and you should be looking at something more in the 7870/660Ti/7950 range.

2.) There is literally absolutely no need for 32 GB of RAM on a gaming-focused system. Even 16 GB is overkill. Most games still can't even allocate more than 2 GB since they're coded for 32-bit Windows. By the time you'd ever be close to needing or using this much RAM for gaming, your rig would be obsolete in every other way. Also, it has stupid heatsinks. Don't get RAM with stupid heatsinks.

3.) I'm not a big fan of Corsair's PSUs, unless you know exactly who's making them. If you're going to spend a decent amount of money on a PSU, I'd suggest going with either the formerly-best-PSU-ever SeaSonic X650 Gold, or the currently-best-PSU-ever SeaSonic SS-660XP Platinum, both of which are more efficient and almost certainly quieter than that Corsair unit.

4.) I see a Z77 board and an i5-3570K, but no HSF. Throw in a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for good measure.

5.) The Antec 300 is a pretty bare-bones case that's not particularly great to work on. I'd suggest considering more modern cases like the Fractal Design Core 3000 (or Define R4 if you want something quiet), BitFenix Merc Alpha, or Corsair Carbide 200R/300R (depending on how much space you need).

You might want to look over the latest TechReport Build Guide. Note the amount of RAM, model of Video Card, Wattage of Power supply used in the builds. I particularly like doing builds that are based on the "Sweetspot", but cherry-pick from the "Editor's Choice"

Looks pretty good to me, aside from the possibly overkill FX card. (I should talk, I have a 6970). My one recommendation would be to see if you can find any of the inexpensive korean 27" 2560x1440 ips monitors that have been making the rounds. The difference in DPI is noticeable, and gaming on a high res 27" is far more immersive IMO.

Here in the US (with fairly little access to the cheap korean displays) they're running $300-$400. Rumors have more of the displays in OZ so the price may actually be comperable.

Looks pretty good to me, aside from the possibly overkill FX card. (I should talk, I have a 6970). My one recommendation would be to see if you can find any of the inexpensive korean 27" 2560x1440 ips monitors that have been making the rounds. The difference in DPI is noticeable, and gaming on a high res 27" is far more immersive IMO.

Going to a 27" display would be a reduction in physical screen size, whilst also making the fonts tinier. As a 54 year-old, I can assure you that one's eyes become less and less able to discern 'spidery writing'. I am loath to spend money on a new monitor which is both physically smaller, and dot-pitch smaller than my existing solution.

If I didn't already have a 32" TV on my desk, I might have considered it in my solution.

(I don't have the desk space for a 32" HDTV and a 27" Landscape-oriented IPS monitor, although I could replace the U2311 with a Portrait oriented 27" for 1440 * 2560 ... however, I don't see any real advantage to doing that in the short term, since the U2311 performs excellently.)

As for the graphics card overkill -- you can never have 'too much' GPU. :-)

RAM: yeah, 32GB is probably retarded, maybe I'll get 16GB. With the existing 8GB I have run into occasions where I am low on memory; dual-boxing two concurrent City of Heroes accounts, back when City of Heroes was a going concern, and more recently, Planetside 2 gobbling up 3+Gbytes of memory and the system 'warning' me that I was low on RAM. I don't consider 16GB 'too much'. Also I've noted the 'stupid heat spreader' problem with those expensive DIMMS and possible cooler-clearance problems. Of historical interest only, my 8GB of memory in November 2009 cost me $AU300, which is about $AU100 -more- than the proposed 32GB I was going to buy ($AU207)

I checked, and the I5-3570K retail box comes with a stock cooler. I have zero intention of overclocking the CPU, so I don't see that I need to purchase a more expensive/powerful third party one? My 2009 system has an I5-750 with the stock Intel cooler on it, and it's hasn't missed a beat in the last three+ years of operation.

Power supply -- my 2009 Corsair 550W power supply is superb. Going for the 700W version due to the beefier video card power requirements, and I am more than happy to support Corsair.

I'm considering my options on:

RAM -- do I keep 32GB or cut down to 16GB ($100 difference in price, which is near-as-dammit irrelevant). The 'heat spreader' problem is duly noted, and I'm considering my options. I'm mighty confused over the plethora of different 'quad channel' kits out there, not sure which is correct for the Z77 board. I look for DDR3, 1600, and after that I'm looking at numbers which don't mean a lot to me.

Cooler -- do I really need a third party cooler? Doing more research there.

Power supply -- Seasonic is $175 for 750watt, versus Corsair $111 for 700watt. I trust Corsair.

Case -- The Antec Three Hundred (Ars October 2009 system build recommendation) was *way* better than the previous 'cheapy' cases I'd gotten over the years. It has great accessibility. At $AU74 it's a known quantity, and it's way cheaper than the unknown (to me) cases. I don't doubt that the Fractal Design cases have got good things going for them; I just find that the Antec Three Hundred was perfect for my 2009 build. So I'm not budging on that one.

Video -- can never have enough GPU. Sticking with the decision to get the 7970.

Yeah, if you aren't going to overclock, go with the stock HSF, and drop the K. I'd also go to 16gb ram, and the lower power supply. Your build honestly should be fine on a quality 500watt supply, which I'd really recommend over getting a power supply that will never be used to near max potential.

I would still kinda recommend you find some way to go triplehead, as I find it significantly more "productive" to have a central "primary work" monitor and two periphials. However since you find gaming on a 32"hdtv to be acceptable, you're already sooooo far away from what I consider reasonable as far as graphics go that I don't really think I could give you too much contructive advice.

Personally a 32" hd tv has such low DPI that I wouldn't consider it acceptable for gaming at all.

Typical Excession thread. Ask for advice, and then just go ahead and ignore it. Welp, can't say we didn't try.

I don't know what you mean by "Excession thread"? I googled up "excession", and this is the closest I came to your usage. However that doesn't look quite right either. I'm interested that there may be a word for "bone-headed contrary behavior in the face of sagely advice".

Otherwise, I've been reading, and answering "What do I buy" threads for more than a decade. You can't let it bother you when an OP decides your advice is rubbish. When an OP rejects your advice, or hares of on a fan boi tangent, take solace that other readers of the thread may have benefited from the discussion or agree with your analysis.

Its the same case you won't budge on, just updated. And (at least in the U.S.) there isn't much of a price difference between the two (currently $10).

So that's what the 'THREE HUNDRED TWO' is about. Thanks. Although, I have no USB3 devices; and if I did have, I'd just plug them into the back sockets (connected to the motherboard). I almost never 'trust' case-USB sockets for things like data transfer, they have an annoying tendency to be flaky. This flakiness never seems to occur with the motherboard USB sockets.

Typical Excession thread. Ask for advice, and then just go ahead and ignore it. Welp, can't say we didn't try.

How is that in any way rational, informative, or useful to anyone?

(only read on if you want to)

Spoiler: show

Considering that I've previously used the 2003, 2006 and 2009 Ars builds that Continuum puts together (mostly untouched), and my past input on those threads, I challenge you to find some any 'contrarian' posts I've made about computer builds in Ars since 2003. I fully expect you to be unable to back up your claim of 'typical post from Excession' with supporting evidence. And -that- is situation normal around here.

I posted a whole slew of reasoning why I do what I do, and I took on board a number of your suggestions, in my subsequent post to Mr D.Cryo.

Lets tackle specifics:

GPU: You claim the ATI7970 is 'overkill' for my purposes. Compared to the GTX680 it's about $200 cheaper, and as good or better. My existing GTX570 is a bottleneck when I'm playing Planetside 2 (although that could also be RAM shortfall, network congestion from too many players in one place etc).

There are people who have dual and quad SLI systems -- are they engaged in 'gross overkill'? Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm spending ~$450 for something that blows the (August 2011 $AU399) GTX570 out of the proverbial, I don't see $450 as an unreasonable outlay for a top-of-the-range video card. If I were to go 30" 2560 * 1600, I'd still be 'ok' with the 7970, not so much with a lesser video card.

RAM: You state that 32GB is 'too much memory' for my purposes. As I said, back in 2000 2GB was considered over the top by most people, some of who were getting by on as little as 128MB. Sure, I could 'get by' with 8GB, but it's ~$200 for 32GB of memory. It can't possibly -hurt- to have too much of it?

If you criticise people for over-supplying resources, are you also critical of people who buy (for example) 'too much' hard disk space? Who are you to say what comprises 'too much' of something?

You did mention the heat-spreader thing with the Corsair RAM I'd mentioned, and I'll go for the low-profile variant, since that's a sensible suggestion.

Cases: You claimed that the Antec case was 'difficult to work with'; I can't dispute that, mostly because I don't 'work with' my computers these days. I don't fiddle inside my computer case more than once or twice a year -- clean out some dust, upgrade a video card, add a SSD, that kind of thing. The case opens without tools, and just works. The alternatives you mention are between 30% and 100% more expensive, for the same 'job'. Any niceness they offer is lost on me, because the case just sits there, holding together my computer. It works. The alternatives you mentioned 'would work', but also cost more money.

I could save $100 on memory by getting 'only' 16GB and then 'invest' that $100 in a Fractal Design R4 case. Or I could have 32GB of memory and the Antec 300, and be just as happy.

Oh and both Ars and the TechReport sites both recommended the Antec 300 in their previous (2012 and earlier) builds, so it's not a -bad- case just because it's a bit older these days.

Power Supplies: You stated you didn't trust Corsair. I'm not convinced that Corsair PSU's are 'bad' in any way, shape or form. The price differential between a Corsair 700W PSU ($111) and the two you mention, are 50% to 100% more (Seasonic X660 gold is ~$206). They might be better quality/better featured, but they're double the price of something that I've found very reliable over the past seven or so years.

Your criticisms were -appreciated-, it takes some effort to respond to Joe Blow on a forum with decent information. However, many of the premises you put forwards ("too much", "I don't like", "overpowered") seem to be personal value judgements, rather that actual 'problems' with the stated components.

Personally a 32" hd tv has such low DPI that I wouldn't consider it acceptable for gaming at all.

That's a fair comment.

Have you tried a good quality 32" HDTV TV-as-monitor? One with truly 'square' sub-pixels?

By that, I mean, sat down with a 32" TV in front of you, at the same view distance as a 23"/24"/27" monitor? (12-15 inches from your face).

It's fucking -huge-. It's grin inducingly large.

Any larger (40" etc) and I'd be moving my head from side to side to 'take in' the screen. That wouldn't work very well. I know that people have 37" TV's as monitors, and they love it, but that screen size is uncommon in Australia, it's 32" then 40", nothing inbetween.

The dot pitch on my 32" TV is much larger than the 23" monitor that sits next to it. If I get -really close- to the 23" I still can't see the dots. If I get within about 6 inches of the TV I can -start- to see individual pixels.

From a 'normal' viewing distance, there is no 'pixels', especially when using the monitor to play World of Warcraft, or Planetside.

Using a 32" TV for finely detailed work, might not be so good as a 'proper' computer monitor running at 2560*1440/etc , because of the dot-pitch thing.

Taking your money and lighting it on fire will produce the same performance improvement as going with anything more than 16GB. I would personally rather use the money for video games, but thats just me and my crazy ideas.

Video card is also overkill for 1080p. You will notice no performance improvement over a 7950. It is another silly expense for negligible improvement. Again, use the money for more games or nice peripherals like a mechanical keyboard or a nice mouse or a 1440p screen.

GPU: You claim the ATI7970 is 'overkill' for my purposes. Compared to the GTX680 it's about $200 cheaper, and as good or better. My existing GTX570 is a bottleneck when I'm playing Planetside 2 (although that could also be RAM shortfall, network congestion from too many players in one place etc).

There are people who have dual and quad SLI systems -- are they engaged in 'gross overkill'? Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm spending ~$450 for something that blows the (August 2011 $AU399) GTX570 out of the proverbial, I don't see $450 as an unreasonable outlay for a top-of-the-range video card. If I were to go 30" 2560 * 1600, I'd still be 'ok' with the 7970, not so much with a lesser video card.

People running dual and quad SLI systems aren't gaming on a single 1080P monitor. They're typically doing a triple-head/Eyefinity setup, and need that much horsepower just to get decent framerates. If you go to a 2560x1600 monitor, then yes, a 7970 would be suitable, as would a 680 (although really, the 680 is a complete waste of money, considering you get about 95% of the performance with a 670 for a bunch less money, and they're quite overclockable).

And if anything, what's bottlenecking you on Planetside 2 is your CPU. It's a notoriously CPU-hungry game, so to assume that all you need to do is throw more video card at is more than a little mistaken. I invite you to take a look at some 7970 benchmarks. Note that you're running at a lower resolution than the lowest they even test at for these cards. If you see a use case on a specific game where the extra FPS is worth the extra money at the resolution you're running, well, it's your money.

Also, FYI, since you mentioned WoW, it's also largely CPU-bound at this point, so the 3570 will be a much bigger improvement there than whatever you replace your 570 with.

Speaking of CPUs, if you're not going to overclock, you can drop to a non-K 3570 and an H77 mobo and save some bucks there, too. Yes, the retail package comes with a stock HSF, but it's a pretty crappy one that's fiddly to install (better hope those pegs seat!), and will probably be the loudest component on your system when you're not gaming. The Hyper 212 will be almost completely silent, and I think it's worth spending the $25 on even if you're not overclocking for that factor alone.

Quote:

RAM: You state that 32GB is 'too much memory' for my purposes. As I said, back in 2000 2GB was considered over the top by most people, some of who were getting by on as little as 128MB. Sure, I could 'get by' with 8GB, but it's ~$200 for 32GB of memory. It can't possibly -hurt- to have too much of it?

If you're not running multiple VMs simultaneously, you will never, ever use that much RAM. Again, as you said this is mostly for a gaming machine, you are literally setting your money on fire by wasting it in this way. The same with the video card. In both cases, you'd be better served saving your money and building a new system sooner, rather than wasting it now on overprovisioning parts of your system that will be rendered obsolete by other parts of your system falling behind the curve by the time they'd be at all relevant.

Quote:

If you criticise people for over-supplying resources, are you also critical of people who buy (for example) 'too much' hard disk space? Who are you to say what comprises 'too much' of something?

I'll freely criticize people for making what I think are foolish financial decisions based on a misunderstanding of performance variables. You are making Bad Decisions here. In some cases, they're good decisions, but not for you, based on the use cases you've presented.

Quote:

Cases: You claimed that the Antec case was 'difficult to work with'; I can't dispute that, mostly because I don't 'work with' my computers these days. I don't fiddle inside my computer case more than once or twice a year -- clean out some dust, upgrade a video card, add a SSD, that kind of thing. The case opens without tools, and just works. The alternatives you mention are between 30% and 100% more expensive, for the same 'job'. Any niceness they offer is lost on me, because the case just sits there, holding together my computer. It works. The alternatives you mentioned 'would work', but also cost more money.

The irony here of you whining about spending an extra $25-50 on a case after insisting on shredding money on useless RAM and video card horsepower is almost too rich to take.

Quote:

I could save $100 on memory by getting 'only' 16GB and then 'invest' that $100 in a Fractal Design R4 case. Or I could have 32GB of memory and the Antec 300, and be just as happy.

Oh and both Ars and the TechReport sites both recommended the Antec 300 in their previous (2012 and earlier) builds, so it's not a -bad- case just because it's a bit older these days.

Believe me, building a PC in a case with a modern design vs. an older case is night-and-day, especially in the realm of cable routing. My previous couple builds were in Antec Sonatas (of various vintages), and switching to a FD Arc Midi for my current one was a revelation. There is room to actually get your hand around inside the case, to route cables so they're out of the way for future work, there are quality airflow paths, and it's just generally nicer all around.

If you just want to munge everything into a box and not worry about it, that's your prerogative, so I guess it's up to you. It was definitely worth it to me, and since you're buying a new case, I figure it's at least worth bringing up the advantages.

Quote:

Power Supplies: You stated you didn't trust Corsair. I'm not convinced that Corsair PSU's are 'bad' in any way, shape or form. The price differential between a Corsair 700W PSU ($111) and the two you mention, are 50% to 100% more (Seasonic X660 gold is ~$206). They might be better quality/better featured, but they're double the price of something that I've found very reliable over the past seven or so years.

Corsair isn't necessarily bad, per se. The problem is that they don't make power supplies. They rebadge ones from other producers. As such, you need to be careful, since you could be getting a quality SeaSonic-produced unit, or you could be getting a mediocre Channel Well unit. Which is what the GS700v2 is. Now, the reviews I've read on it tend to be positive, so you'll probably be okay. The point is, you can't keep brand loyalty to a rebadger, unless you know for sure what you're actually getting, and it looks like you didn't dig that deeply.

But then, I'm generally more picky on power supplies than any other component, as they're the one thing that can literally destroy everything else in your system if they have a problem. You'll probably be fine with the Corsair. At least it's not Deer or something from OCZ.

Quote:

Your criticisms were -appreciated-, it takes some effort to respond to Joe Blow on a forum with decent information. However, many of the premises you put forwards ("too much", "I don't like", "overpowered") seem to be personal value judgements, rather that actual 'problems' with the stated components.

I'm just trying to help you save money and get the most bang for your buck without throwing it away on useless stuff. But if you've got the money, how you stimulate your economy is up to you.

As far as the after market heat sink goes, I upgraded from an i7 920 to a shiny new i5 3570K last month. I am running it on the stock heatsink (for now) and find that idle temps hang around 40c (ambient is around 22). I ran the i7 with a Scythe Mugen 2 and it idled around 38c.

I also replaced my GTX 280 (code name: Space Heater) with a GeForce GTX 660 and not only does it run much cooler & quieter than the old one, it idles around 35c! (the 280 never got below ~45c)

TL,DR;

I5 3570k has idle temps slightly higher than GPU using stock cooler & no OC. YMMV, but I plan on getting an after market cooler.

I see no problem with the GPU. I use a GTX 680 SLI system with a 1920x1200 monitor or a 1920x1080p TV. I still cannot turn all the knobs and dials to 11 and have every game be smooth (I have to dial back FarCry 3 to 4x MSAA), so those who say "you can have too much GPU" are full of it. I'm sure even with GTX Titan SLI, it still won't be enough for EVERYTHING on Crysis 3 turned to 11.

You can, however, have too much PSU. Efficiency sweet spot is still around 50% load, from the last time I looked at Hardware Secrets. If you're not going to Crossfire, go with a smaller PSU. 450 - 550W should be plenty. I use a Corsair 950w PSU in my gaming box and with GTX 480 SLI it was pulling over 600W from the wall. That's when you want a fat ass PSU, when you do SLI/Crossfire.

Personally, I would not buy an ATI card. It's going to take them a while to sort out microstuttering in general. I'd go with a GTX 680 or two. Up to you, though. Either is good. Two are better on the nVidia side. Two on the ATI side exacerbate the microstuttering issue.

Using both banks of memory may limit any sort of memory overclocking you may do. DDR3-1600's the official end of the line, but you can go higher. I would stick with 16GB for gaming. If you're using it for desktop usage and VMs and stuff, keep the 32GB. My main system is 16GB and while I don't run VMs, I leave my web browsers open for weeks at a time. The memory leakage is insane, yet I still don't max out the 16GB physical I have (current memory in use is 11.4GB).

I personally don't like WD Green drives. They're a bit finicky (had one and a half die on me in the past year). I'd go with Seagate or Hitachi (since they're still not rebranded WDs yet).

You don't say if you are, but you may want to cache the HDDs with the 64GB SSD via SRT and use the 256GB for boot/OS. 'course, if you REALLY have money to burn you can do what I did - one SSD for boot and 4x512GB SSDs spanned under Windows for game storage. Honestly, though, caching is going to give you almost all of the benefits with a much lower cost. My gen 2 Razer Blade has a caching setup and both system and game startup is just as peppy as having an all-solid gaming box.

For the CPU, you may want a i7 3770K if you do any encoding, otherwise the i5 3570K is fine. I would use an aftermarket cooler just because the one that Intel includes is about an inch high, if that. If you go third party, get a case with an open motherboard tray to make installation easier. I just rebuilt my i7 860 gaming box with an i7 3770K. I had to tear it apart once because of a short and wasn't able to easily rule out the backplate on the HSF because I have an older Antec Three Hundred that has no open motherboard tray. What a PITA that was...

People running dual and quad SLI systems aren't gaming on a single 1080P monitor.

You can attempt to qualify/generalize -why- people have SLI systems, but at the end of the day, I reckon the biggest reason they do it is "because they can".

Lets move out from the inside-the-case point of view, to picture the wider scene a little more.

I mentioned 'SLI and quad SLI', to inject a "significant dollar value" into the argument. It costs $thousands to implement a quad SLI system, and those people who engage in that, are not going to be quibbling over a mere hundred bucks here and there on RAM or Cases.

Quote:

And if anything, what's bottlenecking you on Planetside 2 is your CPU.

That may well be true. The proposed new system will surely alleviate the current bottleneck.

At the end of the day, you reckon that I'm foolish to *not* cut $100-$200 from by build, by halving my RAM and lowering my GPU spend. And in the wider scheme of things $100-200 is just not a sum of money I find exorbitant.

Where you go on about 'shredding money' and 'burning money', I blink a little, when you then casually talk about people with multiple monitor quad SLI systems, who are spending $thousands on their penis er computer. Many thousands. Using those emotive values (shredding cash, burning money) is, in value-comparison terms, absolutely mis-attributed. What I mean to say is that using loaded terms to describe people's parts choices, is less than useful.

And to belabour the point; the Ars System Build Guide 2012 user comments had many people screaming because the budget box was more than $500. Who seriously contemplates having a -decent- desktop for -less- than $500? Sheesh. (I blame all the fuckin' teenagers, personally).

Quote:

I invite you to take a look at some 7970 benchmarks. Note that you're running at a lower resolution than the lowest they even test at for these cards.

Thanks for the link.

I spent a bit of time yesterday, pondering the differences between ATI's 7970 and the 7950 offerings; as a previous poster pointed out, they're damn near identical, and the bigger version seems to be just Moar Money. I saw a lot of numbers, including a great many graphs that went down to 1280 * 1024, mostly concentrating on 1920 * 1080, and then up in 2560 * 1600 land (where the frame rates were low 20's in some cases, even with the most incredibly expensive cards; only when you got into SLI variants were >50FPS sustainable on those mega displays, for "all dials at 11" game-play.)

Here's some examples of the pages I was looking at: showing 1280 * 1024, 1680 * 1050, 1920 * 1080 and other resolutions. I looked at -lots- of graphs. They weren't all, or even 'mostly' 2560 * 1600 graphs.

Oh, and my conclusion was that there was some merit to dropping my stated spec from 7970 to 7950, with a potential 'saving' of about ~$100. Not $thousands, just a hundred bucks.

Quote:

Speaking of CPUs, if you're not going to overclock, you can drop to a non-K 3570 and an H77 mobo and save some bucks there, too.

Already covered. I don't overclock, haven't done so for a decade, and I don't miss the endless fiddling, excruciating failures ...

Spoiler: show

(CMOS clearing may be simpler these days, but back on the old Asus A7V, it -sucked dogs balls- to specify a multiplier in the BIOS that the motherboard wasn't happy with, since after making a change, the motherboard would not POST, until you took the battery out and shorted the CMOS ...)

instead of watching my CPU temperature like a hawk, with a half-dozen monitoring tools, I use my computer for 'whatever', and it just works. Overclocking is for the birds. I know that's a religious argument (akin to asking "do you use vi or emacs?"), but there ya go.

Quote:

If you're not running multiple VMs simultaneously, you will never, ever use that much RAM.

The RAM is so cheap, it doesn't matter. The difference between 16GB and 32GB is not $thousands, it's $100. I appreciate the point of 'it may never be used in anger'. For me, coming from the days of spending $,$$$'s on -megabytes- of memory, it's effectively free these days.

Remember that Bill Gates once famously said that 640Kbytes was enough for anyone.

Quote:

you are literally setting your money on fire by wasting it in this way.

It's a hundred bucks. I just can't see this as being the mega-problem you're highlighting here.

The Ars 2009 system recommendation was 4GB and I went with 8GB, and I've -run low- of memory-resources a number of times over the past 3+ years.

Quote:

The same with the video card. In both cases, you'd be better served saving your money and building a new system sooner, rather than wasting it now on overprovisioning parts of your system that will be rendered obsolete by other parts of your system falling behind the curve by the time they'd be at all relevant.

Ah. A little philosophy enters into the discussion. I am not entertaining the 'reusing bits' argument. Sure, it's a thrifty approach, and my hat off to those people who manage to keep their Athlon Thunderbird 1000 rigs going, year after year.

I hand-down my old systems. I don't want to worry about component failures in my existing systems, so they're always (mostly) brand new components. After about three years ('A thousand days' is my other way of putting it) I consider the computer to be a used-resource. It's still good enough for people who don't have my kind of discretionary budget, and the recipients of my 'hand me downs' are generally delighted. What that means is that I generally don't re-use components. This will be an all-new build, and my next computer, in 2015/2016 will be another all-new build. The RAM I spend $$$ on today, will not be any use to me in three years time.

The potential for 'saving money' by keeping older systems going, is soon eroded by the reality that you're running -way- less capable computers than the "current" boxes.

If I have to wait ~18 months to jump onto the 'new bandwagon' (GPU, CPU, whatever), that's fine. I'm not really about bleedin' edge. I'm more about 'getting the most bang for buck', and repeating that exercise every 3 to 4 years, not spending much inbetween those times (ok, I usually upgrade my video card once per cycle, I am not hog-tied by my own picayune 'rules' )

Quote:

Quote:

If you criticise people for over-supplying resources, are you also critical of people who buy (for example) 'too much' hard disk space? Who are you to say what comprises 'too much' of something?

I'll freely criticize people for making what I think are foolish financial decisions based on a misunderstanding of performance variables. You are making Bad Decisions here.

<shrug>. To me, it's just $200. I might die tomorrow (1958er). To put $200 in perspective, going to a 2 hour concert from a top-name act (here in backwards concert-starved Australia) is upwards of $300. Compare the momentary exhilaration of a 2 hour concert, to three years of comfortable purring computer components, humming away inside a box, a box which will subsequently become someone else's pride and joy.

Quote:

The irony here of you whining about spending an extra $25-50 on a case after insisting on shredding money on useless RAM and video card horsepower is almost too rich to take.

See, you have these values which I don't share. You 'play inside computer cases', I don't. You've got a different view on the usability of cases, yay. Good for you. Why is -my- view of computer cases ('if it works, I'm happy') worthy of *pissing on* with such unrestrained vigor?

Quote:

Quote:

Power Supplies: You stated you didn't trust Corsair.

Corsair isn't necessarily bad, per se. The problem is that they don't make power supplies. They rebadge ones from other producers.

I see your point here. I also share your fear of poor quality power supplies. Having had systems (and multiple components) fail to cheap no-name power supplies in the past, I look for repeatable quality. I'm fairly confident that any badge-application tactics by Corsair wouldn't be to no-name power supplie makers whose product have a tendency to fail.

'Brand loyalty' comes into play here; it's the same with motherboards, I was bitten by a Gigabyte motherboard which was a POS back in the 1990's, I stayed well away from Gigabyte for ages. Lo, the current (Ars October 2009 Hot Rod) recommendation I'm using is a Gigabyte. Stuff changes, and changes very fast in the computer component industry. Some people hate Radeons, others hate Nvidia.

I understand how brand loyalty can be a crutch.

So saying, if you have any evidence that Corsair power supplies are 'failing in droves', I'd be the first to react, and jump away to buy something 'more reliable'. I don't see that. The very reason I read Ars, and other tech sites, is so that I can perhaps glimpse pitfalls that other people experience with components.

Quote:

I'm just trying to help you save money and get the most bang for your buck without throwing it away on useless stuff.

That's a fine sentiment. What irks me is the somewhat arbitrary and repeated value-judgement snideness you exhibit, coupled with the relatively small -differences- in cost you're jumping up and down about. The loaded terminology "shredding your cash" isn't helpful, it's just emotive and disruptive, rather than informative and useful.

Yet again, thanks for your considered input. I believe that threads such as these, are beneficial to all, and one of the reasons why its worth being a member of the Ars Technica community. Compare and contrast to the comment-one-liners on Hard[OCP] or <shudder> Anandtech ...

Personally, I would not buy an ATI card. It's going to take them a while to sort out microstuttering in general.

Seen a few mentions of 'SLI microstuttering' on ATI boards, but not for single GPU versions -- do you have links/references?

Quote:

I'd go with a GTX 680 or two.

Locally, the cheapest GTX 680 leadtek is $530. Two of those would be $1,060. (Umart in Qld has them on special at $499)

Quote:

I personally don't like WD Green drives. They're a bit finicky (had one and a half die on me in the past year). I'd go with Seagate or Hitachi (since they're still not rebranded WDs yet).

I'm just glad the Thai flood price rise has gone away.

Those drives in my build are not going into the end-build, I have two 3TB drives sitting on a shelf at home, waiting to put in to my existing computer, but now I'll be putting them into the new one. They are Seagate drives I ripped out of their stand-alone cases, which were on special at $118 each just after Christmas.

Quote:

You don't say if you are, but you may want to cache the HDDs with the 64GB SSD

An interesting option.

I am wide-open to how to utilise the two SSD's I currently have, in the new system. For ease-of-use I found the "O/S on an SSD, and games on another" to be highly effective. I'll read up on using an SSD for HD caching (ala Apple's Fusion drive) in Windows 7.

Quote:

For the CPU, you may want a i7 3770K if you do any encoding, otherwise the i5 3570K is fine. I would use an aftermarket cooler just because the one that Intel includes is about an inch high, if that. If you go third party, get a case with an open motherboard tray to make installation easier. I just rebuilt my i7 860 gaming box with an i7 3770K. I had to tear it apart once because of a short and wasn't able to easily rule out the backplate on the HSF because I have an older Antec Three Hundred that has no open motherboard tray. What a PITA that was...

Sticking with an I5 3570, since I don't generally do video ripping/encoding, and I don't plan on overclocking, ever.

I've been looking with some interest at those 'sealed' water-cooling units (radiator+fan+water-block) that companies are offering these days, but realistically, if I don't have to fuck-about with anything other than the stock 3570 cooler, I'll just bung it in and see how it goes. If I have problems with noise (or heat), I can always fix it 'after the fact' with an additional purchase.

Ideally true, but IceStorm is kind of insane about performance, so you can't take anything he says with any consideration about value. I think he spent something like $3500 on his current gaming PC?

Dac wrote:

I've been looking with some interest at those 'sealed' water-cooling units (radiator+fan+water-block) that companies are offering these days, but realistically, if I don't have to fuck-about with anything other than the stock 3570 cooler, I'll just bung it in and see how it goes. If I have problems with noise (or heat), I can always fix it 'after the fact' with an additional purchase.

You appear to be set on your other choices, and I'm OK with that. It's your money, after all. However, I do want to address this. Closed-loops watercooling systems aren't really worth it unless you're doing some serious overclocking. The majority of them are also louder than decent fan tower air cooling systems, due to pump noise. It's also huge pain to install an aftermarket HSF after you've already built your PC, mainly due to hand/tool access. It's easier on cases with a mobo tray cutout, and fortunately the Antec 300 now has one, but it's still waaaaaaay easier to get one attached before you install the board in the case.

If you're even considering 3rd party cooling, I'd really suggest just doing it up front and being done with it. I mean, this is one of those fiddling-about-inside-your-case things that you said you never plan on doing, so why get a nice case?

If pointing out that paying $100 for 3 frames per second improvement is a bad financial decision means "being full of it" then I rather bathe in the BS. You know what being full of it is? Claiming that the negligible improvement is very much worth it, then admitting to owning two high end cards that can't even get their intended job done. You simply cannot touch the very high end settings on some current games on current hardware, period. Paying $100 for THREE minimum frames per second at best is just throwing away your money. Those 3 fps you gained are not gonna make the game any more perceptibly playable.

If money is no object to you then 3 fps might be worth $100, but then It's funny how $100 is chump change for that, yet paying extra for a quality enclosure is dumb. Why not go all the way and get a 690 for REAL ACTUAL improvement, or a Titan? Or better yet, use the money for a monitor with a decent resolution, not one that is matched by cell phones and exceeded by tablets.

We see threads like this every once in a while where the OP asks for advice, gets sound advice, then soundly rejects it. It almost seems that the hidden purpose is to brag about a parts list for ePeen. Guess what, we just laugh at you for throwing your money away, just like we laugh at IceStorm for spending the money for two high end cards that can't even get the job done of playing his games at a paltry 1080p maxing out settings that he probably would barely be able to pick up in a double blind test.

I think you should have bought your build days ago and not waste time with this thread

Why not go all the way and get a 690 for REAL ACTUAL improvement, or a Titan?

Wait, you're railing at me for 'shredding money' at $100 and then suggesting that $1,000 video cards are the 'solution'? Are you so blind that you see the 'factor of ten' implicit in your rant? I guess it was easy for you to miss that I already addressed the '7970 is only a 7950 + MOAR CASH' observation I made in my large response to S, which was put there precisely to address the previous-post salient point you had made.

Quote:

Or better yet, use the money for a monitor with a decent resolution

Decent resolution?

Driving 2560*1600 or 2560*1440 is incredibly difficult to do well. A 27" Korean 'take your chances' IPS monitor is considerably smaller than my existing 32" solution, and a 30" Dell or HP or whatever, is a $1,200+ hole in my wallet, with the concomitant POORER frame rates since the GPU is pushing 4M pixels instead of 2M pixels. I don't want to play games at 8fps, thanks.

The whole 'what monitor is best for you' thing is another set of value judgements; some people wouldn't dream of a 1080 world, desiring their special "I must have 1920 * 1200" la-la land, and others couldn't do without twin 30" behemoths on their desks, with the associated eye-watering costs. I explicated at length -why- I stick with a 32" HDTV, to Mr Cryogenic. Its a choice I'm comfortable with, and one I made almost four years ago, it hasn't cost me a cent extra in hardware costs during all that time, and won't cost me anything when it's plugged into the (eventual) replacement system. Whose counting pennies here? I do hope you're keeping track, you seem to worry about them so much. (hint: how much is a 2560 * 1440 IPS monitor ... careful, this is a trick question).

You go off the deep end suggesting that I would be better off to spend $1000+ on the latest and greatest Nvidia-wank video card, and pop a couple of 30" 'decent resolution' monitors on my desk, at $1200-1500 each. How does your $4,000+ fantasy shopping spree on my behalf, come anywhere near addressing this perceived $100 'extravagance', by buying a 7970 video card?

Quote:

We see threads like this every once in a while where the OP asks for advice, gets sound advice

There are too many people ready to poo-poo anything (be it $600 budget boxes, or $14K god-boxes), without any consideration for 'real world' numbers. You're up there on your fucking ivory tower, spewing the 'shredding your cash' platitudes over a $100-more-than-perhaps-needed video card outlay, whilst at the same time, poo-pooing the 'unsatisfactory' nature of 1920 * 1080 monitors, and offering $4,000 'real' solutions to problems I haven't ever specified (i.e. they're in your head).

You're not about advocating technology; you're all about pushing your own misguided agenda of 'you could save money by doing X', whilst living in your 'of course, I'd spend 10X and have a REAL solution'.

Get a grip.

Quote:

Guess what, we just laugh at you for throwing your money away

No guessing involved, you'll laugh at anyone, for any reason. Because that's what turns you on.

Quote:

I think you should have bought your build days ago and not waste time with this thread

[/quote]

Yeah, I'll be sure to go get that Nvidia Titan and a brace of 30" monitors, real soon now. Thanks ever so much for your sage advice, full of plucked-out-of-the-air fantasy numbers and over-the-top "real" solutions to supposed problems.

(if I had real work to do, I'd have left it at , how fortunate for us all that my working day is full of opportunities to put together rebuttals to asshat arguments ...

Spoiler: show

I know nothing good can come of this 'prolonged further explication' on my part, but fuck that noise ...

I am sorry for making an asshat of myself and saying three frames per second. Make that FOUR. In more modern games the difference will be even more negligible. In older games (like Crysis 2) both cards at at or very close to 60fps, so there will be little perceptible difference.

Again, if you are so keen on throwing your money away, get a 690 or Titan. Or better yet, dont throw it away and save it for a decent screen with pixels smaller than grains of salt. Or, as pointed put by other people using their time TRYING TO HELP YOU OUT, use the money for better parts for the rest of your system. On stuff like an enclosure that is not from five years ago.

I will leave it at. You seem to be extremely butthurt, and since this is your own thread, I will respect that and move on to other topics more worthy of my time.

If pointing out that paying $100 for 3 frames per second improvement is a bad financial decision means "being full of it" then I rather bathe in the BS.

Ewww! Stinkypants!

Quote:

You know what being full of it is? Claiming that the negligible improvement is very much worth it,

There are a subset of us who have been burned by "bang for the buck". It is less of an issue these days, but having been burned by it before, there's a reluctance to go back there. I dislike it so much I just go big and buy two. As I recall, BFG10K buys single top of the line cards, too.

In the majority of cases, you're correct. The difference between top and next tier down is typically negligible. However, every once in a while there's a corner case where that difference (your 3 FPS) becomes much more noticeable, like the difference between 25 and 28 FPS.

Quote:

Guess what, we just laugh at you for throwing your money away,

Not all of us.

Quote:

just like we laugh at IceStorm for spending the money for two high end cards that can't even get the job done of playing his games at a paltry 1080p maxing out settings that he probably would barely be able to pick up in a double blind test.

Hey!

That FRAPS counter is very visible, flickering up there, taunting me...

P.S. Latest WHQLs from nVidia address FarCry 3, apparently. I may try them tonight, or I may go back to playing Xenosaga via PCSX2. So pretty...

I've been looking with some interest at those 'sealed' water-cooling units (radiator+fan+water-block) that companies are offering these days

Closed-loops watercooling systems aren't really worth it unless you're doing some serious overclocking. The majority of them are also louder than decent fan tower air cooling systems, due to pump noise.

The concept of closed-loop coolers is new to me, seeing what people's opinions are.

Checked out a few reviews of the Corsair H80, H80i, H100i systems, which had temperatures and decibel measurements -- they can be as loud as the stock HSF, and in overclocking, they start to be excessively loud.

As you suggest, the main reason for water cooling systems, is for overclocking stuff. I'll not be investing in it, I don't need it. Still, it's an interesting development in case-cooling, so I'm interested in the tech, even if I'm not tempted to join in.

Quote:

If you're even considering 3rd party cooling, I'd really suggest just doing it up front and being done with it.

Based on my I5-750 stock-cooler experience, which was flawless, I think I'll just leave do with Intel's stock I5-3750 HSF and see if the fan noise is appreciable.

Consider 2x8 for 16GB. On my P67/i7 2600k platform, it switches from 1T to 2T command rate with 4 DIMMs. Not a huge hit in performance, but we gotta start somewhere right? I understand I can skip XMPP and do manual 1T override, but will that be 100% stable? no idea. I also don't know if the same happens on Ivy Bridge.

On that note, I have 4x4 for 16GB, and it's way overkill. I oftentimes leave 2 games running at once, I stream games online, encode crap in the background, and 8GB is never exceeded. HOWEVER, I like having a large disk cache, since I move large files around a lot that IS beneficial in that regard. 32GB? No clue what to do with that.

Heatspreaders: buy the sticks that fit without modification; warranties are all void when you tampered with the heatspreaders. And just this week for the first time in my geek life, a 4GB DDR3 stick went bad in my primary machine, causing total freeze, then POST loops until I removed it.

I recommend two good sticks of 8GB to get lower command rate and have the possibility of later upgrade.

I recommend two good sticks of 8GB to get lower command rate and have the possibility of later upgrade.

After writing a screed to M, and modifying my OP, I went looking for Corsair 'low profile' (CML...) RAM to alleviate the heat-spreader problem; my preferred supplier didn't have any 32GB CML kits. I reluctantly switched to a 4 * 4 CML kit, though if I ever did want 32GB (yeah, I have no clue why either ) I would have to replace the lot, so why not go 2 * 8GB? It's also two less components to 'fail'.

That RAM looks really nice. And it's tested with your MB? Nice! 2x8 would be a great configuration. When I purchased, 4GB was the most you could get on a stick, would have taken 2x8 over 4x4 any day, even at higher cost.

Have you tried a good quality 32" HDTV TV-as-monitor? One with truly 'square' sub-pixels?

Yup, I have. And I can see the pixels at my typical ~1 meter viewing distance. Then again I can also easily tell the difference between my 1920x1280 24" and my 27" apple cinemadisplay at the same distance. I have quite acute vision.

But if the 32" hdtv works for you, more power to you, I just know they're ugly as heck to me. (And I lust after 4x displays. . .)

Glad to see you're going with a less "overkill" PSU, though I think I'd be keeping the modern temperature efficient FX card vs an old 570 that isn't anywhere near as temp efficient.

* Antec 302 Case: The hard disk placement is at 90degrees to normal, sideways instead of the normal front-to-back design.. If you have the drives with the connectors facing the rear of the case, it's impossible to get the connectors on the drives, once they're in place. If you have the drives the other way around, with the connectors on the outside, the power cables aren't easily routed. I guess I'm doing it wrong -either- way I try, sheesh.

(I just read the manual, and you're supposed to have the drives oriented so that the connectors face 'out', go figure).

Computer is up an running -without- the GTX570 video card, whilst I finish transferring data from the old system to the new one via a USB2<->SATA drive dock. Painfully slow. >20 hours to transfer <2TB data.

The new system seems to be fine; the UEFI bios is pretty snazzy, and having on-board-video powered by the CPU is a 'neat trick' to those of us who haven't seen that before.

Going to have a problem transferring my Acronis Tue Image Home backups to the GPT (Guid Partition Table) drives, because my 2011 version doesn't natively support GPT (it sees the drives, but they are greyed out, and Acronis sends me to their web-site to 'upgrade' to Acronis True Image Home 2013 for GPT disk support -- grrr.)

The non-pro Samsung 840 uses new TLC NAND flash, with about 1/3 the writeable life of the more standard MLC NAND. Depending on your usage, this can lead to write exhaustion on the 120 GB model in about 3.5 years. The larger capacity 840s should last proportionately longer, but the 120GB one is pretty much out for significant usage. See if you can exchange it for something a bit better, like an Intel 330 or SanDisk Extreme or Mushkin Chronos Deluxe.